nature is misery

This Week in Reading:

Redmouth by Claire Wahmanholm

Wahmanholm’s poems are about ecological despair. She depicts nature in all of its brutality; even the simplest settings are harsh and unforgiving. In “Children Arrive in the Land I Thought I was Alone In” she writes:

“How did they arrive in this nettled world
where an even rougher wind scrapes a rough sky
redder every dusk?”

The truth is, nature is kind of miserable. Beautiful, for sure, but at its core, it is unpleasant. Nature is the dead baby hawk that fell from its nest, it is an earthquake tearing the land in two, it is avalanches and rockslides and riptides. Even the tranquil scenes are plagued by discomfort: itchy grasses and bug bites and rotting fruit. Nature is death and terror and violence— there is nothing comfortable about nature.

Despite, or perhaps in response to this, humans are obsessed with cultivating comfort within the natural world— mitigating the misery that is inherently coupled with nature itself. We weave fabrics that repel the rain, design tents to block the wind, create insulated sleeping bags that keep us warm in arctic temperatures. So often, humanity is framed in opposition to the natural world. Man vs. nature, with man always attempting to conquer the danger that laces throughout the earth. Even the non-combative slogan of “leave no trace” stems from the principle that humans are separate from nature, ergo, the only way to preserve the wild is to remove ourselves from it. This is to ignore the fact that we ourselves are animals, and the natural world is, in actuality, our native habitat.

On a broader scale, humans’ attempt to create comfort within nature’s hostility has inadvertently attacked the planet. We want the comfort of driving instead of walking, the comfort of gas furnaces that keep our houses warm, and electric air conditioners that keep them cool. Our modern comforts have inevitably made the earth less inhabitable, less comfortable, and have thus created further need for comfort. Our inability to withstand discomfort has led us to distance ourselves from, and subsequently destroy, the natural world. Claire Wahmanholm writes of rivers that have fallen to dust, ecological landscapes devastated by human violence. The hostility of this land was at least partially instigated by us.

Outdoor recreation is based on the premise that we can be at home in nature, but it also
contextualizes nature as a foreign entity. Land is something you visit and explore, something separate from us. The Sierras and the Glendale Target exist on the same landmass, but no one seems to remember this. It has become a hobby to experience the land we exist in. Or rather it has become a hobby to experience discomfort. Skiing, hiking and camping are all acts of will— daring to find pleasure in the face low-level misery.

Kyle got our disposable camera from Thanksgiving developed last week. There is a flash photograph of him in the Redwoods, holding up our Thanksgiving dinner in a bag. Another photo of me, warming our mashed potatoes and gravy on my tiny camp stove, illuminated by a headlamp. November is California is still November, and it was wet and windy and cold. The second night, a ranger hiked into our backcountry campsite to inform us that the park would be closing all of the campgrounds the following morning in response to the gale force winds that were forecasted. We woke before dawn to tear down camp, murmuring “we gotta get out of here” to each other as we raced across the ridge line, the storm brewing above us. It was a wonderful, miserable trip—but no one goes backpacking if they aren’t a little bit into suffering. I like backpacking because I like knowing that I can carry everything I need to survive. When you camp, your entire day is spent carrying out the most basic life tasks: making shelter, filtering water, feeding yourself. It reminds me what an achievement it is to accomplish these tasks so mindlessly in my everyday life. Something inevitably goes wrong: coffee filters forgotten in the car, a wrong turn, a leaky tent— and you adapt, you survive, carry on.

When we approach the wild through outdoor recreation, we seek comfort as a way to more firmly situate ourselves within the landscape. In our attempt to reconnect with our natural habitat, we separate ourselves from it; insulate ourselves its discomfort— from the chill that cuts to our core, from the hard rocky ground that we lay our heads down on. Maybe these attempts at comfort negate the very foundation of nature itself. Outdoor recreation is built on the fallacy that to be at home at nature, we should feel comfortable there. Perhaps our relationship with nature is inherently unpleasant, and it is our denial of that hostility that deepens the divide between man and the wild. Misery is not necessarily oppositional—it can be neutral.

In Redmouth, Claire Wahmanholm is reverent: brutality belies power, and nature is a cruel god. In relation to such a force Wahmanholm’s body is merely a humble sacrifice. Respecting nature means prostrating yourself before its wrath, knowing it can, and will, kill you. She writes:

“When I say this land needs a queen, I mean

I could stay here forever. If this dream will one day
strangle me sleeping in it’s vines, I will

not struggle. Within its evergreen map I will
sleep, a dull and sapless leaf”

Studio-ing

I am deep in the throes of MFA application season. I had an interview for UCLA a week or so ago (I spent the majority of the interview discussing Taylor Swift with Barbara Kruger, I kid you not), and am going down to San Diego this weekend to interview with UCSD. I’ve already been rejected from one school and am waiting to hear back from another. Cross your fingers for me! I need all of the luck I can get.

Further Reading:

This book was a gift from my friend Clair, who is an extraordinary poet in her own right. You can read some of her poems here and here. She also published a very good book, In the Plum Dark Belly.